A is for Anna’s Hummingbird

We are very fortunate to live in a part of the world where hummingbirds live. Although we do not have nearly as many dramatic species as there are in the tropics, we have one who lives year-round–the Anna’s. This morning as I was wiping the sleepiness from my eyes, stretching my muscles and contemplating the possibility of going to the gym, a little Junco caught my attention. The little guy was doing us a favor and just munching away on the one dandelion in our yard that had gone to seed. It looked so cute plucking the seeds and eating them I thought, “Get the camera.” As I was picking up my camera in the family room a Towhee caught my attention hopping around on the spire of our bird house feeder. Just as I was focusing in on the Towhee I saw a flash of green and was again distracted–this time by a lovely female Anna’s. For the life of me I can’t think of the name of the flower I have outside my window, but the hummers love them. She was going to each individual flower, periodically sitting on a small stem to lick nectar, but mostly hovering. Her tiny green feathers shimmering she eventually flew up to the nearly leafless tree near our house and delicately landed. Tummy full, she began to preen.

S T R E T C H . . .

Although my painting today is of a little male from this summer, her poses and activity was much like his are in this painting. (For all I know, these two may be mates.) This little guy had been buzzing around in the backyard. I could hear him and went to investigate. I came to the conclusion that he did not want to share the Lucifer Crocosmia that were in bloom at the time. He did spend a lot of time sitting on this bare pine branch stretching and preening–then for no apparent reason trill his high pitched “Get out of my territory!” call and take off–only to come back and stretch some more.

I am intrigued by these little birds and spent a little more time doing research when I posted about “Look! Flying Jewels!”, the third painting in The Bird Watcher series. If you are interested in more facts you can go to that post or just look up hummingbirds and read up on them. They are the mightiest of all birds and the smallest of all birds.

I must sign off–no, it’s not because I just saw a bird fly by (the equivalent of butterfly, butterfly)–it’s because I have nothing more to say ;-). SHOCKING! BTW, I did make it to the gym but I didn’t get any pictures of any of the birds I saw this morning but I sure enjoyed watching them.

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